


The Eyes

by Schemilix



Series: Blood and Gold [11]
Category: Final Fantasy Tactics
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-08
Updated: 2013-08-08
Packaged: 2017-12-22 20:42:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/917813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Schemilix/pseuds/Schemilix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She may be in his jaws but the same cage holds them both. (Izlude and Alma start talking in the dungeons.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Eyes

Her cell does not befit a high-born girl. Even prisoners of the higher class are to be kept in plain but comfortable housing. Here she can see the manacles on the wall rusted with blood. She rubs her wrists though she remains unbound and whispers a prayer.

”Alma.” The voice comes from outside her cell. She looks through the grill but sees the corridor empty. “Are you there?”

A voice that is unfamiliar - she has to wrack her mind to realise it is the voice of the boy who carried her away. He must be Ramza’s age, but still a boy to her. He barely spoke to her through their flight; the voice is hardly familiar. She remembers him shouting at Marach and little else. She can think, though, of his sullen face, and the crick in her neck over the back of his courser.

"I don’t wish to speak to you," she says primly.

The voice is undettered. “You are unharmed?”

"No thanks to you," Alma replies, not so easily swayed. There is a pause before Tengille - that’s surely his name - says,

"Alma - we’re both in the same position now."

”Oh, so now you are the captive, you have every wish to be friends? Please stop. I have no wish to be rude even to a brute like you. But I shall be if you keep at this.”

With that she fumbled the grate shut with a cringing shriek of iron and steps away from the door. He still hears Tengille’s heavy sigh, the kind of deep exasperation only an adolescent can muster that seems to come from his toes.

”I’m thinking that one or both of us might be killed, is all.”

High-borns are above execution, even youngest daughters. The Beoulves are too great a house for that. She’ll be ransomed, she’s sure. And she won’t do any complaining nonsense like most girls would. She’ll thank her brother for letting her out, and then she’ll carry on with her studies - and grow into a proper woman, and teach other children. That’s her dream. Housewifery never suited Beoulves. Maybe she’ll take a husband, but so far the men she has known have been disappointingly stupid and cruel.

”They wouldn’t dare,” Alma says firmly.

”They bloody well would!”

Alma clicks her tongue with disapproval. “Oh don’t swear, it’s frightfully brutish of you to swear.”

To her surprise Tengille says, “Sorry.” She forgives him a little.

”Yes, well. If we’re going to get along, you aught to talk to me like a proper lady.”

”I’m not a proper lady, I’m a boy.”

Alma snaps open the grill to shout at him. “No, me, stupid! I’m a proper lady.”

”Pretty sure they don’t talk like that.”

Alma makes a noise of frustration and slams the slot right shut. “Ohh, what would you know!”

”Meliadoul’s a proper lady,” Tengille says sullenly.

”She’s one of your lot, isn’t she?” Alma asks, unable to picture a face but vaguely recalling a name. She likes to read about women like that. “What sort of proper lady goes around breaking heads?”

”Heretic heads!” Tengille snaps, as if that makes any different. “She’s very civilised about it, thank you very much.”

”What’s civilised about bloodshed!” Alma shouts, smacking the door. She’s had quite enough of this blood-and-thunder business. She no longer forgives him for apologising.

”Lots! Fighting for your family’s honour and in the name of the Gods is the most noble thing a person can do.”

She hears a dull clank of armour that might be Izlude saluting. Alma can’t even see him, so what does he think he’s doing? Stupid boy. One too many knocks to the head, she thinks.

”Oh do come off it,” she grumbles. “I’d rather be sewing, and I hate sewing.”

”I tried sewing once. I wasn’t very good at it, and father hit me for being unmanly.”

”Well if a lady can be a warrior like you say, why can’t a boy sew?”

She hears another click, maybe a shrug. “I don’t know, that’s just the way of it. Oh, my armour’s dented… it shouldn’t make that noise. I wish they’d let me change out of it, you know? It’s dreadfully inconvenient. Don’t ever wear armour, Miss Beoulve. It’s not as heavy as the bards sing about. No nonsense about cranes and chocobos but Gods, when you need to - but that’s not for ladies, is it?”

”That’s disgusting! Brute!” Alma shouts. Then she hears footsteps and the voice of the young man who captured them. Marach. He’s more formidable than he looks - she can see his dark eyes and his scowl through the grill when she slides it open.

”Out,” Marach grunts, manhandling Izlude out despite the lad being a lot bigger and probably older. Alma takes a good look at his face. It’s easy enough to ignore that he’s handsome in his way. He looks afraid, staring up the corridor as if Death herself waits for him. Young and afraid. Like she is, inside.

Marach looks Alma in the eye as he leads Izlude away, grumbling about the jobs he has to do. But she isn’t looking at him - Izlude is looking at her, his grey eyes opaque with things she realises she will never understand. She will never see him smile.


End file.
